Professor and Student Team Up on State-Sponsored Poisoning Briefing and Publication

But even attacks targeting just one person shouldn’t be overlooked and can wreak significant havoc, Professor Philipp Bleek and student Greyton Kegler MANPTS ’24 argue in their recent research. Their findings are already getting interest.

In May, Bleek and Kegler were invited to brief officials from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) on their work. Then they coauthored an article titled “Eye of newt, toe of frog…maybe just Novichok?” published in the June 2024 issue of the practitioner magazine CBRNe World.

“Working with students in this way has been the highlight of my academic job,” said Bleek.

Bleek has focused on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats for many years, including the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, notorious for a 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. Sarin is a nerve agent, and 14 people died in that attack, with an order of magnitude more injured. Bleek worked on the only study that debriefed cult members about their activities, including those on death row in Japan (Read his reflections). From 2022 to 2024, Bleek served on a congressionally mandated, Department of Defense–sponsored, National Academies–convened study on chemical terrorism.

“I think there is a tendency in some literature to really romanticize or to sensationalize assassinations as this James Bond-esque phenomenon. One of my goals with this is to make CBR assassinations a bygone era, a historical phenomenon, not something that we need to be worrying about seeing year in and year out,” said Kegler, who graduated with an MA in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies in May.

The pair briefed a delegation from DTRA on campus in Monterey in May. The delegation brought one of their interpreters in training so he could practice his skills doing consecutive interpreting. It was also a great learning experience for Kegler.

“It seemed like a daunting task for the interpreter,” said Kegler. “We’re using words like  cyclosarin and microfluidics, all of these very specialist terms.”

Bleek is continuing with the research. In the fall, he’ll present it at a major practitioner conference, CBRNe Convergence, and he has other presentation opportunities, too.

“Even failed attacks create a lot of headaches for authorities,” said Bleek. “They have political implications. They potentially deter other people and shape other people’s conduct. Also, how do you manage the psychology of the public who are freaked out about this, who are wondering if the area is clean, who are wondering if they were exposed? There are a lot of complex and interesting dynamics to unpack, with the ultimate goal of helping policymakers and first responders better mitigate these threats.”